Poverty of two sorts dominated the picture as AIDS researchers met in Florence this week. First, there was in creasing evidence of the links between poverty and the spread of HIV. Secondly, there was the poverty of basic science in the face of a rapidly growing global epidemic.

This year's conference has so far offered small steps forward, but no major advances, in understanding the biology of HIV. Meanwhile, new figures have deepened researchers' fears that Asia is on the threshold of a massive epidemic.

Epidemiologists at the World Health Organization have doubled their estimate of the number of people infected with HIV in Asia, from 500 000 to 1 million, following new data from Thailand. James Chin of the WHO's Global Programme on AIDS predicted that in as little as five years the number infected in Asia could treble to 3 million. Most of these people will be in ...

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